Control wire fault location 1

[dup18]

On some long conveyor belt installations, the control wires are installed in metal conduit that is fastened to the conveyor belt structure. Some of these conduit runs are in excess of 3000 feet long. There are pull boxes and junction boxes every so often. These control wires are #14 AWG single conductor wire. Quite often, there are 12 or more conductors in any one run of conduit.
The voltage is 24 vdc. Over time, due to the vibration of the belt structure, these control wires ground to the conduit. We monitor the system for ground faults, and we know when we have a ground on the system.
My question is this: Is there a system (TDR or ??) that can be used to locate where the ground is, so that we can make the necessary repairs in an efficient manner?

Thanks,
Dave

 

[OperaHouse]

A TDR would work great. Given a capacitance unknown forthe wire, compare a known distance wire with the faulted one as a ratio.

 

[Skogsgurra]

Have a look at thread248-314263 Several techniques are discussed. There's a home-brew TDR described in one of my posts. You build it in less than 30 minutes (on a breadboard) and it is cheap.



Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

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